More than 100 killed in Syria IS attacks

BEIRUT: More than 100 people were killed in Syria in 24 hours of violence after Islamic State fighters attacked regime troops and a suicide bomber caused carnage at Kurdish new year celebrations, a monitor said Friday (Saturday in Manila).

More than 70 members of government forces were killed when IS attacked checkpoints and other positions in the central Homs and Hama provinces, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said “most of the dead, around 50, fell in the Hama countryside.”

Several jihadists were also killed when clashes broke out, he added without giving a toll.

The regime controls most of Homs and Hama.

“IS has faced setbacks recently in the provinces of Aleppo and Raqa and in Hasakeh in confrontations with Kurds on the one hand and regime forces on the other, and are now trying to score military points, even limited ones, to offset their losses,” said Abdel Rahman.

The suicide bomber struck at Syria’s Kurdish minority on Friday, killing more than 33 people as they celebrated Kurdish new year in Hasakeh, northeast Syria.